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Mobile Farmers Market Offers Affordable, Accessible Produce To Gainesville, Florida Residents
Fresh Wagon is a United States Department of Agriculture-funded project that provides fresh produce to Gainesville residents at a low cost. The wagon has been in business for two years, according to Bruce Waite, executive director of Common Thread Alliance
Bruce Waite, executive director of Common Thread Alliance, in front of the Fresh Wagon. The Fresh Wagon, a project of Common Thread Alliance, delivers fresh produce to low-food-access areas. (Audrey Alonso/WUFT News)
Home / Health and Science / Mobile Farmers Market Offers Affordable, Accessible Produce To Gainesville Residents
Mobile Farmers Market Offers Affordable, Accessible Produce To Gainesville, Florida Residents
March 1, 2018 Health and Science
The smell of fresh produce filled the air of the parking lot on the north side of Nationwide Insurance Thursday morning. A white trailer with bold, green letters that read “Fresh Wagon” across the side, displayed a variety of fruits and vegetables for Nationwide employees to choose from.
Fresh Wagon is a United States Department of an Agriculture-funded project that provides fresh produce to Gainesville residents at a low cost. The wagon has been in business for two years, according to Bruce Waite, executive director of Common Thread Alliance.
Fresh Wagon is a service of the Food Oasis Project, which is a program of Common Thread Alliance. The alliance is a nonprofit organization and is a farmer-producer that operates in Melrose, FL. The workers of Common Thread go out weekly and aggregate produce from nine partner farms, Waite explained.
The Fresh Wagon facilitates a relationship between local farmers by making it available for small family farms to have the opportunity to build sustainable revenue, according to Waite.
On Thursdays, the wagon goes to a number of companies and employers, such as CH2M Hill, Nationwide Insurance, UF’s College of Public Health and Health Professions and the Malcolm Randall VA Medical Center.
On Fridays, the wagon goes to numerous Housing and Urban Development-sponsored locations in East Gainesville, from housing that focuses on people with disabilities to the elderly to families, Waite explained.
“Part of our research is trying to connect the issues associated with state, federal and corporate employees that may be struggling to make ends meet,” Waite said. “And [they] may be deferring their utilization of fresh food, because it’s expensive.”
“So even though they (employees) come here (Nationwide Insurance) every day to work, [the question is]: Do they go home to a neighborhood that doesn’t have a supermarket for them?”
Students and employees walk along the circle drive of the College of Public Health and Health Professions, located at 1225 Center Drive, as the Fresh Wagon trailer pulls up and parks around noon Thursday. The farmers open the doors on the side of the trailer and pull out the shelves of produce.
Within five minutes, a crowd of people lined up to begin picking their produce, a green basket in hand. Students walking by stop to observe the wagon, eventually picking up a basket or plastic bag to start picking.
“It’s easy to come by and get fresh food while at work,” Anne Bogar, a UF Health Shands Hospital employee, said. “I don’t have to deal with the insanity of the local market by where I live.”
The farms listed on the Fresh Wagon Website are as follows: Barnes Farm located in Hastings; Blue Sky Farm and Brubaker Farms located in Elkton; Brown’s Family Farm and Frog Song Organics located in Hawthorne; Full Circle Farm located in Melrose.
“We load about 32 to 34 different fresh fruits and vegetables by Wednesday of every week,” Waite said.
He explained that Common Thread received an inquiry from the City of Gainesville around six months ago about positioning the wagon in locations where more people can access it.
He mentioned that so far there has been no update on the inquiry but assured that the alliance is willing to discuss expanding.
The idea of Fresh Wagon came from a concern about food proximity in neighborhoods where people lacked the access, according to Waite.
“Over time, it has also grown to encompass a strong interest in working people and their lack of proximity and inconvenience of getting fresh food while working,” Waite said.
To locate the areas where additional access to fresh produce is needed, the program employs Neighborhood Deprivation Indexing. It looks at 17 different socioeconomic measures and enables Common Thread to map those measures in four quadrants of health risks, Waite explained.
“People lack access to transportation. Even though there is bus service available, it’s a challenge [to grocery shop],” Waite said. “We’re trying to strengthen those communities. We’re trying to foster independence.”
Tags AGRICULTURE ALACHUA ALACHUA COUNTY BUSINESS CITY OF GAINESVILLE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE EAST GAINESVILLE FLORIDA FOOD DESERT FRESH WAGON GAINESVILLE HAWTHORNE SHANDS HOSPITAL TRANSPORTATION UF UF HEALTH UF HEALTH SHANDS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA USDA
Behind The Rise And Fall of Growing Power
Behind The Rise And Fall of Growing Power
The urban farming powerhouse had a global reputation. Then, it collapsed last year under mounting debt, prompting big questions about what happened and what comes next.
Will Allen in a Growing Power greenhouse. (Photo credit: Growing Power)
03.13.18
Will Allen is a beloved figure. The former professional basketball player and founder of the Milwaukee-based nonprofit Growing Power has had an influence on urban agriculture that is as conspicuous as his 6’7 inch frame and the characteristic sleeveless hooded sweatshirts that reveal his lumberjack biceps.
In 1993, Allen bought the city’s last remaining farm at 5500 Silver Springs on Milwaukee’s north side, four miles from the nearest grocery store and five blocks from the nearest public housing projects. What grew from that 19th-century greenhouse could not be measured in pounds, bushels, or even dollars. What arose was a nonprofit organization that expanded people’s ideas about what was possible in local food production and youth education.
Then, last November, facing insurmountable debt and legal pressure (the nonprofit has eight pending judgments totaling nearly half a million dollars) the board of directors decided to dissolve Growing Power. Many questions remain about what caused the organization’s downfall, but as Allen told Civil Eats recently, he has no intention of retiring.
“The shutdown was unfortunate and something I had no control over,” said Allen, who is still working on the farm. “We’re trying to get this place back to its original glory days. What’s been reported is absolutely not true. I can’t tell the story because it’s too involved, but I can tell you that we’re on our way back.”
As the story unfolds—and accounts differ—the downfall of Growing Power raises larger questions about the risks of scaling up urban agriculture in today’s complex philanthropic world.
The Early Days
From the beginning, Allen, a son of sharecroppers who grew up on a farm in Maryland, had two distinct priorities for his farm: composting and youth mentorship—the latter informed by the former. In drafty old greenhouses, Allen taught low-income children how to grow compost in rows of wooden boxes. Worms fed on decomposing vegetables, circuitously depositing dense nutrients into the soil and creating healthy compost, which was then sold by the organization. The compost was an essential part of the work.
Where most people see vacant lots, Allen saw vegetables. Growing Power built over 100 hoop houses, each one spread with more than 100 yards of compost over asphalt and concrete. “You have to assume every vacant lot has contaminants in the soil,” he said. “So that why I started this practice of composting at scale.”
Growing Power soon incorporated aquaponics, another closed-loop system that produced farmed fish and simultaneously fertilized the plants with their waste. In just six months, 50 tilapia emerged from this rudimentary but brilliant system.
Growing Power’s Milwaukee farm. (Photo credit: Will Allen)
A defining characteristic of Allen’s work was the way in which his social programs emulated the holistic feedback loops of his farm. Decorative plants were used for landscaping, then sold to schools and community centers, funding the continuation of the program. Students learned how to read, write, and can vegetables. Growing Power worked with the local juvenile justice system, training and rehabilitating children by planting flowers in vacant lots whereby Allen’s own estimation—they might’ve otherwise been used for selling drugs.
The 1990s in urban Milwaukee was unkind to its young Black men. In this period there were four times as many African Americans incarcerated annually for drug-related offenses as white men. (This persisted over the subsequent decade, with disparities rising to 11- to 12-fold between 2002 and 2005.) On a vacant lot at 24th and Brown, a planting flurry would yield what Will calls “a flower explosion.” It was a way of running drug dealers off the corner, as it invited attention and activity. And in just two years, Growing Power itself was beginning to attract attention, on the front page of the Milwaukee paper, and from other civic leaders in high-crime neighborhoods around the country.
By the early 2000s, the local food movement was no longer localized. Farmers’ markets were popping up nationwide, and along with them a legion of so-called “good food” advocates. Growing Power was still centralized in Milwaukee, but its impact had grown nationwide. The two-acre flagship greenhouse was now a training facility with visitors coming from around the world to learn from the organization. It was a good food hub, creating access to healthy food in an area that desperately needed it.
By 2009, Growing Power was selling food online, at farmers’ markets, schools, restaurants, and via below-market-cost CSA boxes, reaching more than 10,000 people. In addition to growing and distributing food, Growing Power-led trainings grew exponentially. Visitors from the city of Milwaukee, the Midwest, and countless cities worldwide adapted Allen’s knowledge of growing, composting, and aquaponics for their communities.
Notoriety and Success
Growing Power’s expansion can be attributed, in part, to the MacArthur Genius Award Allen received in 2008, and the half-million-dollar prize that came with it. It also garnered high-level attention from the media, the food world, and former President Clinton.
Will Allen demonstrates his aquaculture system for Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack (left) in 2015. (Photo credit: USDA)
Allen became a star, and his organization grew radically, from a staff of a dozen or so to 200 people. A widespread recruitment and mobilization of urban agriculture and environmental justice workers ensued. A decade later, many of those workers now lead their own urban farming enterprises.
People like Nick DeMarsh—a Growing Power employee from 2008-2010 and currently a program manager at Groundwork Milwaukee—attributes the health of Milwaukee’s urban farming community to Allen’s inspiration, saying, “We’ve seen Will as a model, and people have said, ‘How can I do that in my own neighborhood?’”
Educational programs spread throughout the region. There were leadership programs, job trainings for underserved youth, internships, and hands-on workshops. The funds also supported a Chicago chapter of Growing Power, led by Erika Allen, Will’s daughter.
There were more greenhouses and hoop houses, more kitchens and training gardens, fish, chickens, turkeys, goats, and bees. Most of what was raised on the farm was also packed, distributed, and promoted by the organization. By all accounts, Growing Power was doing exactly what they had set out to do. They were feeding, training, and exposing thousands of people to a more autonomous relationship with their food. The mission was being fulfilled, but with significant costs.
Perhaps the income and activity obscured the high operating costs, but there was income. In 2012, Growing Power was again awarded a substantial grant, this time from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Kellogg had an explicit aim to support racial equity and community engagement, and Growing Power checked a lot of boxes for them.
As the funding amplified, so did scrutiny about its origins. In fact, one of the very people that helped facilitate the crucial MacArthur grant would later become openly critical of Growing Power’s choice of funders.
Andy Fisher, the co-founder of the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC)—a food justice organization on whose board of directors Allen served for six years—had seen Allen as “an inspiring and charismatic leader.” But when Growing Power accepted a $1 million grant from the Walmart Foundation in 2011, Fisher was outspoken about his displeasure with this corporate philanthropy. Some, like Fisher, saw no distinction between the Foundation and the company, and worried that Walmart was brazenly trying to buy its way into the good food movement.
As Fisher saw it at the time, the Walmart Foundation’s giving was 100 percent linked to the strategic interests of Walmart the company. He saw the funds as an endorsement (or absolution) of the corporation’s practice of exploiting and underpaying food-chain workers, farmers, and suppliers. “I thought it was naive and problematic that he was taking the money and giving them a pass on their payment practices,” Fisher told Civil Eats recently.
Some of Growing Power’s hoop houses in Milwaukee. (Photo credit: Will Allen)
For his part, Allen contended that significant progress without the buy-in of large corporations was untenable. “We can no longer be so idealistic that we hurt the very people we’re trying to help. Keeping groups that have the money and the power to be a significant part of the solution away from the Good Food Revolution will not serve us,” he said at the time, in a statement on the Growing Power blog.
Regardless of the source, from 2012 through 2015, more money was exiting than entering Growing Power’s doors. Internal Revenue Service documents from 2014 show that the nonprofit was running substantial deficits, in excess of $2 million that year. In 2015, an investor in a for-profit spinoff, Will Allen Farms LLC, filed a lawsuit against Allen and his accountant Thomas Schmitt. The investor alleged that she had been misled about the development of an industrial laundry site to be turned into an aquaponic facility.
The Fallout
People close to the organization were saddened by the news of its dissolution, but many were not surprised. As far back as 2014, the Chicago chapter of Growing Power had begun to move toward independent accounting and funding strategies. Warning signs about Growing Power’s financial health were embedded in its mandatory annual filings and felt by its vendors.
And despite Allen’s passion and dedication, he may have suffered from a bit of founder’s syndrome. Fisher theorizes that Allen’s inability to empower and retain an operational management team was the main cause of the organization’s collapse.
“Will centralized all the power in himself, but he was never around. It became dysfunctional,” Fisher said. “They tried to at times bring in others to run day-to-day operations so Will could have a more outward-facing role, but that person would resign and inevitably they’d go back to the old system.”
Will Allen (back row, right) at a 2016 White House garden event, alongside Barack and Michelle Obama, Alonzo Mourning, Sesame Street characters, and many others. (Official White House photo by Chuck Kennedy)
Erika Allen, who has reorganized the Chicago chapter of Growing Power as Urban Growers Collective (UGC), also noted an inadequate composition of board members as a vulnerability of the organization. “There were weaknesses on the board. A little analysis would’ve exhibited the losses, and that the nonprofit needed to run more like a business,” she said.
Conflicting Accounts
After Growing Power announced its discontinuance, it was reported that Brian Sales, founder of Green Veterans, would assume the transition. Sales, a Florida veteran who’d only met Allen one year prior, said he created Green Vets as a means of trauma resolution and green jobs skills training for military veterans. He reached out to Allen and soon after had joined him in Milwaukee for a 30-day aquaponics training. He was persistent about working with Allen, who soon gave him a job as an assistant facilities manager at the headquarters in Milwaukee, where he worked until the nonprofit’s closure in November 2017.
Prior to Growing Power’s shutdown, Sales began working with Groundwork Milwaukee, a nonprofit chapter of an environmental land trust that also supports more than 100 urban farms in the city. The hope was that Sales would help manage the transition.
Deneine Powell, Groundwork Milwaukee’s executive director, told Civil Eats she was in regular communication with Allen and that she was under the impression that he planned to retire. Sales also seemed certain about Allen’s retirement and reported that he was “always hinting at retirement” and grooming Sales as a successor.
Allen denied making any arrangements with Sales. And while he wouldn’t share any details about his plans with Civil Eats, he said he hopes to reveal more soon. “My focus has to be on getting this place back and getting possession of it,” Allen said of the lot on Silver Springs Street.
It’s clear that, in the meantime, Allen, Sales, and Groundwork all appear to be actively working to shape Allen’s legacy. But just how coordinated those efforts will be is another question.
Lessons Learned
What can the demise of Growing Power teach the food movement? For some, collaboration (or lack thereof) was a prominent theme. Sales speculates that an inadvertent siloing of Growing Power left it too exposed. “One organization cannot take on that big of a task; you need multiple organizations that will work as part of the spokes on a wheel,” he said. Meanwhile, Allen echoed his daughter’s sentiments that a lack of oversight by board members compromised the organization’s financial health.
What is certain, however, is the undeniable impact the organization has had over the last two and a half decades. “The training, learning, and benefits of Growing Power will be felt for years to come,” said Ricardo Salvador, director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former program officer for the Kellogg Foundation. Everyone Civil Eats spoke to for this article unanimously agreed on that point.
Erika Allen said UGC is now centered on empowering young people of color through education. “Growing Power was about feeding people, but for us, the education component is higher-stakes,” she said. She noted that training programs are expensive to operate—even those that generate their own revenue tend to rely on outside funding. More fastidious financial oversight would’ve likely helped Growing Power arrive at the same conclusions, but for now, she hopes “to take the lessons of what worked” and move forward.
Will Allen photo by Carlos Ortiz (Photo courtesy of Will Allen.
It’s clear that Will Allen’s legacy will live on in the many organizations that grew from his work. In addition to empowering a generation of community leaders all across the country, who have gone on to radically transform their lives and neighborhoods, he also succeeded at teaching and protecting vulnerable Black children in an era when very few other entities were up to the task.
A common adage for Allen was, “We’re not just growing food, we’re growing community.” By that measure, his success is timeless. Allen is optimistic about the next generation of farmers, but he knows it will be a hard road and frames this challenge as only he can. “To be a sustainable farmer and grow without chemicals is harder than being a professional athlete,” he said, adding that he knows this first-hand, “because I‘ve been both.”
What Would Make Urban Agriculture in New York City More Equitable?
Last year, City Council Member Rafael Espinal introduced a bill that would have set up a comprehensive plan, calling for in-depth analysis of potential spaces, zoning laws, and building codes, as well as the expansion of the availability of healthy food in low-income neighborhoods.
What Would Make Urban Agriculture in New York City More Equitable?
The city needs policies to support both well-funded, high-tech farm operations and community-run urban farms.
BY LISA HELD
03.05.18
Reverends Robert and DeVanie Jackson, founders of the Brooklyn Rescue Mission Urban Harvest Center in New York City, are proud of the fig trees and raised beds in their organization’s urban garden. Since 2002, local students and senior citizens have tended the crops that help stock the mission’s food pantry. A mile and a half away, Bushwick City Farm, which started in 2011 with volunteers reclaiming a vacant, garbage-strewn lot, now provides free, organically grown food to in-need community members.
Despite deep roots in their communities, both of these urban farms are at risk of collapse. The Jacksons may lose their land in March unless a crowdsourcing campaign can raise the $28,000 they owe the bank for the lot, located in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. And though the owner of Bushwick City Farm’s lot originally told the farmers they could use the space, in August, he changed his mind and gave them 30 days to vacate. The owner has yet to enforce that order, but that could change at any moment.
“We’ve got 30 chickens there, and we didn’t have anywhere to go; we felt like we were participating in the community and he wasn’t,” said Bushwick volunteer James Tefler. “The neighborhood rallied around us and we had meetings with city government representatives.”
Those representatives, including Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, have been responsive to their plight, but so far it’s unclear what the city might actually be able to do to help. And it’s just one example of why some city lawmakers have been pushing to establish a new urban agriculture policy that would provide guidance to and support local growers.
Last year, City Council Member Rafael Espinal introduced a bill that would have set up a comprehensive plan, calling for in-depth analysis of potential spaces, zoning laws, and building codes, as well as the expansion of the availability of healthy food in low-income neighborhoods. The law the council ended up passing, however, was barely a shadow of the original proposal. It required the city simply to create an “urban agriculture website.”
Espinal said the original bill did not pass because many of his fellow lawmakers “felt as if there weren’t many barriers getting in the way [of urban agriculture]. We had some disagreements, and we agreed to move forward by taking what we see as a first step, by pushing the city to start a conversation.”
So while the website will be set up as a portal for growers to get information on things like regulations and resources, Espinal plans to continue to work on new legislation that will further his original goals. “The city has to sit down and really figure out ways that it can be a partner in helping urban ag grow,” he said. “There’s a whole ecosystem of opportunities and positive effects it can have on the city.”
Harvest time at Brooklyn Rescue Mission. Photo courtesy Brooklyn Rescue Mission.
But in a city where community farms are struggling to hold onto land while commercial indoor farms backed by venture capital are booming, can legislators create and pass policy that tackles the complexities of the landscape and supports a more robust, representative system?
Growing Community, and Commerce
While many other cities around the country, including Detroit, Austin, Boston, Cleveland, and Portland, Oregon, have passed progressive laws to support the expansion of urban farming, New York’s landscape is complex and crowded. New Yorkers have been working in “farm gardens” since at least 1902. In the 1970s, however, the community gardening movement took off in a new way as activists transformed the many vacant lots that spanned the boroughs. The city supported that effort by creating the GreenThumb program in 1978, which now oversees approximately 600 gardens across a total of 32 acres.
Over the past decade, as urban farming has expanded around the country, community gardens and commercial farming at a larger scale have also grown. In its Five Borough Farm report published in 2012, the Design Trust for Public Space identified 700 total farms and gardens in New York across four categories—community gardens, institutional gardens, community farms, and commercial farms—producing food in the city. In a 2014 follow-up report, that number had risen to 900.
Since then, commercial farm growth has been particularly significant. At the time of the first report in 2012, there were three in the city: Brooklyn Grange, Eagle Street, and Gotham Greens. Brooklyn Grange has since debuted a second, larger farm at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and Gotham Greens now has three massive greenhouse farms—two in Brooklyn and one in Queens.
Photo courtesy Gotham Greens.
In addition, Bowery, Edenworks, Square Roots, and Local Roots are all indoor farms that began growing and selling produce within the past few years. And all of that development has occurred with little city involvement. This rapid rise of large-scale, well-funded farm operations in the Big Apple, alongside the growth of demand for community gardens, is part of what complicates New York’s policy work.
A Path Toward Policy
“The kids get in here and start touching soil, [and] they change. It might keep them out of jail, or they may get a Ph.D.,” Rev. Robert Jackson said of the 770 student interns the harvest center has hosted since 2002, as he threw vegetable scraps to excited chickens, which are famous in the neighborhood.
On a walk to the mission, local community leader Kenny Mbonu stopped the Jacksons on the street and began, unprompted, to talk about their impact. “These people are true pioneers in community food and in creating green spaces,” he said. “My kids held chickens for the first time at the farm. You should have seen their faces.”
Reverends Robert and DeVanie Jackson. Photo courtesy Brooklyn Rescue Mission.
While arguments for supporting urban growing often focus on food access, a 2016 literature reviewpublished by Johns Hopkins found that “urban agriculture’s most significant benefits center around its ability to increase social capital, community well-being, and civic engagement with the food system.” At the same time, the report found that urban agriculture can negatively impact communities through gentrification, and recommended that the development process include a community’s most vulnerable residents in the decision making.
Which is why advocates say involving community leaders and small growers in the policy process is so important. A public hearing on urban ag policy held last fall left a bitter taste in community organizers’ mouths; advocates said the meeting was largely skewed toward for-profit, primarily white growers, while community growers of color were underrepresented.
Luisa Santos, who testified on behalf of the Design Trust for Public Space at that meeting, called for a citywide task force that would review the proposed plan. A diversity of growers on that task force is key, she said, as is acknowledging resource gaps between community and commercial growers.
Protecting access to land, especially spaces community members have already invested in, is also an issue an urban agriculture plan could help with, Santos said. Espinal said he hears from constituents “all the time” about land issues. Many community gardens have been lost in the past two years to development or have been taken over by the city to build affordable housing.
Photo courtesy Bushwick City Farms.
And simple clarity would help everyone involved in the system, from community gardeners to large-scale commercial farms, Santos said. “One of the great opportunities with an urban agriculture plan is just making sure that there is policy for what you can and cannot do in relation to growing food, for yourself or to sell.”
Moving forward, Espinal said he envisions a future plan that would create opportunities for commercial growers to work together with and help community growers. “My main goal in the next few months is working with all stakeholders, figuring out what are the issues and barriers, and putting a policy document together.”
Santos said the Design Trust felt the legislative change was a disappointing setback, but that it didn’t destroy the possibility of “achieving a comprehensive agriculture plan” in the future, and that the organization is now putting together a task force to work alongside elected officials.
In the meantime, growers like the Jacksons will keep digging in the dirt and distributing food for as long as they’re able, tending to the hole in the hoop house has, and cutting back the cherry tree.
“We had an agreement with the birds,” Rev. DeVanie Jackson said. “They get the top and we get the bottom. But now, they’re getting everything.”
Top photo courtesy of Bushwick City Farm.
| Food Deserts, Food Justice, Food Policy, Local Eats, Urban Agriculture
States With The Best And Worst Diets
States With The Best And Worst Diets
By Cheyenne Buckingham and Samuel Stebbins January 31, 2018
The prevalence of obesity among American adults has been on the rise for decades. While the obesity epidemic has ushered in wave after wave of fad diets and weight loss schemes, the fact remains that a balanced diet is one of the simplest and most important aspects of a healthy lifestyle.
Despite a near-universal understanding of the importance of regular fruit and vegetable consumption, not all American adults make it a priority. Nationwide, only about 78% of adults eat vegetables at least once a day and an even smaller 60% share consume fruit on a daily basis. Additionally, despite the known adverse health effects associated with high sugar consumption, about one in five American high school students drink soda every day.
While maintaining a balanced diet may seem straightforward, dietary habits are subject to a range of social and economic factors, and as a result, vary considerably by region and state.
24/7 Wall St. reviewed fruit, vegetable, and soda consumption rates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify the states with the best (and worst) diets.
Though a balanced diet is only one aspect of a healthy lifestyle, states with larger shares of residents who regularly consume fruits and vegetables tend to report other healthy behaviors which in turn support healthier outcomes — including lower obesity rates and lower incidence of premature death.
Consuming healthy amounts of fruits and vegetables appears more common in some regions, with the states with the best diets concentrated in the Northeast and least healthy confined exclusively to the South.
Click here to read about the states with the best and worst diets.
Click here to read our detailed findings and methodology.
Jillian Hishaw, Esq. LL.M - A Big Lift to Small Farms
F.A.R.M.S. is a regional nonprofit dedicated to protecting the family farm against land loss through estate planning and education while relieving hunger in the farmer's community. To keep up to date with Ms. Hishaw’s latest activities please visit www.jillianhishaw.com Please follow us on social media T: FARMS30000 Instagram: f.a.r.m.s FB: F.A.R.M.S.
Jillian Hishaw - A Big Lift to Small Farms
Family Agriculture Resource Management Services (F.A.R.M.S.) Named a Finalist in The Atlantic’s 3rd Annual Renewal Awards
Vote Today! Online Voting Open from February 7–February 21; Details at TheAtlantic.com/Renewal-Awards
Family Agriculture Resource Management Services (F.A.R.M.S.) has been named a finalist in The Atlantic’s The Renewal Awards, a nationwide competition recognizing local organizations driving positive change in their communities and bringing progress to the country.
Online voting began on Wednesday, February 7 and runs through Wednesday, February 21, at TheAtlantic.com/Renewal-Awards.
The Renewal Awards seek to illuminate grassroots solutions to challenges faced by communities around the country in an unsettling economic era.
Ultimately, five organizations will each receive a $20,000 grant from Allstate and five runners-up will each receive a $10,000 grant from Allstate.
The Renewal Awards are related to The Renewal Project, a social-first website and newsroom spotlighting people and organizations advancing social good and contributing to civic innovation across the country.
Last year’s Renewal Awards were presented in March 2017 after a yearlong search for America’s most promising social innovators. The six winning organizations, chosen from a pool of more than 460 nominees, were: New Alternatives for LGBTQ Homeless Youth (New York, NY), Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop (Washington, DC), Kounkuey Design Initiative (Los Angeles, CA), LostBoyz, Inc. (Chicago, IL), and Hour Children (Long Island City, NY), also the “Allstate Youth Empowerment” winner.
F.A.R.M.S., is a regional nonprofit dedicated to protecting the family farm against land loss through estate planning and education while relieving hunger in the farmer's community. To keep up to date with Ms. Hishaw’s latest activities please visit www.jillianhishaw.com and to support F.A.R.M.S. work visit www.30000acres.org and sign up for our newsletter. Please follow us on social media T: FARMS30000 Instagram: f.a.r.m.s FB: F.A.R.M.S.
Jillian Hishaw, Esq. LL.M (Agricultural Law)
2017 CLIF Bar "Food Industry Changemaker"
F.A.R.M.S. Founding Director
Phone: 307.228.0407
Fax: 1.888.877.0455
Indoor Farms of America Announces Game Changing Containerized Farm Models
Indoor Farms of America has developed new models of its containerized farms for 2018 that again transcend any other container farm in the world, for farm yield, and all-around crop growing capability.
Indoor Farms of America Announces Game Changing Containerized Farm Models
NEWS PROVIDED BY Indoor Farms of America
January 30, 2018
AS VEGAS, Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Indoor Farms of America has developed new models of its containerized farms for 2018 that again transcend any other container farm in the world, for farm yield, and all-around crop growing capability.
The 2018 GrowTruck Model 8590 Aeroponic Farm
Indoor Farms of America Beautiful Butter Lettuce Wall
"We received feedback over the past two years from folks all over the world wanting container farms that were not limited in scope to growing leaf lettuce or basil," says David Martin, CEO of Indoor Farms of America. "Now you can have our superior aeroponic farms and grow 3 crop types at the same time, and grow more by a large margin than anything else promoted in a container farm."
The Model 8590 is based on a 53-foot semi trailer platform, and the first of its kind is under construction and headed to an extreme climate in the Northwest Territory of Canada. "This farm is more highly engineered and built to perform and withstand outside temperatures of 40 below zero, and our team is really excited for the folks that will eat the fresh produce from it, that have never in their lives experienced truly fresh things, and definitely have never seen it grown locally as they will now," explained Martin.
In a 40-foot container version, which is called the Model 6160, the Company sees applications in aiding food deserts in any location of the world, particularly where a farm may need to be completely off-grid, which can be done now.
Ron Evans, President of Indoor Farms of America, says: "These are really fun farms for the farmer, and expand what a farmer can offer customers. Grow beautiful butter lettuce, along with strawberries, basil and other herbs, and a bounty of microgreens, all from one farm in a small space. There is nothing else like it in the world and nothing that comes close in growing capacity."
Leading indoor agriculture R&D and manufacturer, Indoor Farms of America has a showroom with demonstration farms operating in Las Vegas, Nevada and in multiple locations in Canada, and in South Africa, where their world-class vertical aeroponic equipment is on display.
The company has its equipment on display February 5th and 6th at the Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture, in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
CONTACT:
David W. Martin, CEO • 189621@email4pr.com • IndoorFarmsAmerica.com
4000 W. Ali Baba Lane, Ste. F Las Vegas, NV 89118
(702) 664-1236 or (702) 606-2691
SOURCE Indoor Farms of America
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Junk Food Could Be Taxed Like Cigarettes Or Alcohol, Researchers Find
Researchers found that a tax on junk food is both legally and administratively feasible at the federal level in the United States. Proponents of such a tax claim it will help curb obesity in the country which is now peaking at alarming levels, essentially becoming a public health hazard.
Junk Food Could Be Taxed Like Cigarettes Or Alcohol, Researchers Find
JANUARY 24TH, 2018 | BY TIBI PUIU
Researchers found that a tax on junk food is both legally and administratively feasible at the federal level in the United States. Proponents of such a tax claim it will help curb obesity in the country which is now peaking at alarming levels, essentially becoming a public health hazard.
“Economic and social environments can influence food choice in beneficial and harmful directions. Our finding that a federal manufacturer excise junk food tax — defined through product category or combined category-nutrient approaches — appears to be legally and administratively feasible and has strong implications for nutrition policy,” said Jennifer L. Pomeranz, who is an assistant professor of public health policy and management at NYU College of Global Public Health.
According to the CDC, 36.5 percent of American adults and roughly 20 percent of children ages 6 to 19 are obese. What’s more, over 70 percent of all men and 60 percent of all women from the US are overweight. This makes a huge fraction of the country’s population at risk of developing cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and chronic kidney disease. And to be fair, this is no longer an American problem. A third of the world’s population — over two billion people — is now either overweight or obese.
Given the public health risks, many experts believe we ought to enact policies that improve American diets. One course of action would be to regulate the price of food and beverage to incite consumers to make healthier choices, either through taxing unhealthy foods or offering subsidies for healthier foods.
A legally feasible tax
Researchers at New York University and the Friedman School at Tufts University investigated the feasibility of implementing a national soda or junk food tax. A federal-level tax, rather than state-by-state, is preferred because the effects are broader and you avoid seeing things like consumers traveling from state to state to fill groceries and dine at restaurants where they can escape the tax. On the other hand, the United States is not heterogeneous in its citizens’ attitude towards junk food or healthy eating, which will make a nation-wide tax challenging to implement.
The team examined the present scientific literature to identify which products should be targeted for junk food taxes but also looked elsewhere where similar legislation was passed. There are eight countries in the world who have implemented some kind of food and beverage taxation specifically aimed at curbing obesity.
Kerala, a state on India’s tropical Malabar Coast, imposed a 14.5 percent tax on the consumption of fast food. In 2014, France introduced a tax on sugary drinks that made a noticeable dent in the sales. And in the United States, some municipalities have taken matters into their hands. The city of Berkeley, for instance, introduced a one penny-per-ounce tax on all sugar-sweetened beverages sold in the city. Five months after its implementation, lower-income residents had reduced their consumption of these items by 21 percent compared to pre-tax levels.
Researchers identified four ways of classifying foods:
- by product category (such as soda or candy),
- broad nutrient criteria,
- specific nutrients or calories,
- or a combination.
The most frequently targeted categories were sugar-sweetened beverages, candy, processed meat products, and sweet and salty snacks, and the most frequently targeted foods were sugar, calories, and salt.
Next, the researchers looked at the various federal taxing mechanisms that would be the most administratively feasible. For instance, there are two main types of tax: sales or excise. Excise taxes are charged on the manufacture, distribution, or sale of commodities, and it’s up to the taxed entity to determine the extent to which it will pass on the tax to consumers. Sales taxes are paid directly by consumers and collected by sellers.
Other countries where there’s a junk food tax overwhelmingly use an excise tax mechanism, similar to the kind you see for alcohol and tobacco.
“One advantage of a manufacturer excise tax is that food companies may be incentivized to reformulate their products if nutrition criteria are incorporated into the tax,” Pomeranz said.
Ultimately, from a legal and administrative perspective, the team concluded that a federal junk food tax is feasible. Existing bills and laws support defining junk food through product-specific categories, and add a graduated taxation strategy where the tax increases as the nutritional quality of the food decreases. From an administrative perspective, current taxing mechanisms support the viability of a junk food excise tax paid by manufacturers, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Public Health. So, the ball is now in the court of policymakers who have the, admittedly, challenging and unpopular job of taxing junk food and soda.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
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Local Food Activist Jillian Hishaw Named A 'Changemaker'
Local Food Activist Jillian Hishaw Named A 'Changemaker'
By AMY ROGERS • January 23, 2018
For more than a decade, agricultural attorney Jillian Hishaw has been working in the southeast to alleviate hunger, help financially distressed farmers hold on to their land, and find markets for locally farmed goods.
Now Hishaw has been named a “Food Changemaker” by the Clif Bar Family Foundation.
Jillian Hishaw
CREDIT COURTESY JILLIAN HISHAW
The agricultural attorney is the founder of Family Agriculture Resource Management Services (F.A.R.M.S). In a short film about her work, she explains, “My grandfather was the inspiration behind F.A.R.M.S. because of his experience with our family-land loss.”
Hishaw works with organizations and individuals such as LeTanya Williams, who lives and farms not far from metropolitan Charlotte, in Chester, S.C. Williams explains she is a “minority, ‘double-time,’ as an African American and also a woman.” Support and understanding of farming struggles are important, “but what I really admire about Jillian is that she gathers money to purchase food from farmers – because this is not a billion-dollar industry – to give to their local pantries,” Williams says.
In November 2015, Hishaw organized a free produce giveaway for Charlotte’s low-income seniors and families. Hundreds of people attended. That same year, F.A.R.M.S. purchased 16,130 pounds of fresh produce from family farms, then distributed it to food banks, pantries, child care centers, and other community agencies.
Such organizations are often limited to stocking canned goods and other non-perishables, so these farm-fresh greens, beans, melons, potatoes and tomatoes are especially welcome. In 2016, the amount F.A.R.M.S. purchased and distributed increased six-fold – to 100,765 pounds.
The group also received a grant from the African American Community Foundation (AACF), part of Foundation for the Carolinas, to install gardens at a senior living facility in Charlotte’s Washington Heights neighborhood; then purchased produce and fresh-farmed fish for donation events to benefit single-parent households and a mental-health group home, respectively. Members of the Males Place partnered to assist with an event to provide 500 pounds of sweet potatoes to a daycare center for elder Charlotte residents.
Certainly, food donations are the public face of F.A.R.M.S, but it’s the work behind the scenes that’s just as critical. It’s estimated that black landowners are losing approximately 30,000 acres of farmland each year. Hishaw explains, “The average age of a U.S. farmer is 65 or older. They need help with succession planning, estates, and foreclosure prevention.” To foster the next generation of farmers, the group also provides internships and educational programs for students. (While there’s no monetary prize for the “Changemaker” designation, the Foundation is a current funder of Hishaw’s program.)
Most recently, Hishaw has been working as a local consultant on the City of Charlotte’s Farmers Market study.
She states, “The need for farming is essential, and until we provide our existing farmers with support – and recruit new and beginning farmers into the career sector – our food systems will continue to be broken. Urban financial support of rural areas is essential because zoning and development pressures will keep urban farms from growing, and one can only grow so much on a vacant lot.” To sustain its mission, F.A.R.M.S. is seeking volunteers, friends on social media, and business partnerships.
There’s much more to this story of giving “A Big Lift to Small Farms.” Check out this video of Hishaw with some of her partners in food advocacy. For more information, visit the F.A.R.M.S. website, 30000acres.org.
Next Gen Urban Farming Is Here to Stay
Next Gen Urban Farming Is Here to Stay
By Dawn Allen - Aug 16, 2017
A combined fence, recycled-tire trellis and clothesline at the Earth Works community garden in Detroit. Photo by Jessica Reeder, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Urban farming seems so 2010. That’s when you couldn’t swing a hydroponically grown tomato vine without hitting someone who was, wanted to be, or talked about urban farmers being the Next Big Thing. However, cities and suburbs are full of people who need to eat, so urban farmers are still busy growing food and a bumper crop of them are innovating new ways to bring nutrition and social justice to their neighbors.
People in Atlanta, GA, are about to gain access to more fresh food thanks to a $50,000 grant from the National Association of Conservation Districts. This money will go towards converting three utility easements into fifteen acres of urban agriculture. The Mayor’s Office of Resilience sees urban farming as a way to bring healthy food within half a mile of 75% of the city’s residents by 2020.
In Buffalo, NY, they’re starting to take the idea of “grow food, not lawns” seriously. Fleet farming, which took off in Orlando, Florida in 2013, is a decentralized urban farming model where homeowners provide all or part of their yard to pedal-powered farmers who maintain a series of gardens throughout a roughly five-mile radius. The food is then sold in farmer’s markets and restaurants in the area. Growing and transporting food this way solves many problems, from the need to mow wasteful lawns, to avoiding fossil fuels, to helping the local economy.
During the California drought, one innovative urban farmer in the Bay Area produced fish and greens using far less water than traditional farms. Ken Armstrong of Ouroboros Farms was inspired by watching a YouTube video about Will Allen, who brought urban farming to Milwaukee, and decided to take up aquaculture. Cycling water through a system of fish tanks and pebble-filled beds of greens provides nutrients for the plants while cleaning water for the fish. On just a third of an acre, Armstrong produces five acres’-worth of lettuces using 2/3 of a gallon of water per head, compared to 12 gallons for traditionally farmed lettuce.
Urban Farmer Starting His Own Revolution, posted by the Oprah Winfrey Network
Since the urban farming trend has been catching on for several years now, people are becoming more hip to the value of having high quality, local food readily available. The next wave of urban farming may be the “agrihood.” Agrihoods are planned communities that include both residential areas and agricultural land. Residents take part in the process and enjoy the fruits of their labor. One such agrihood, in Detroit, concentrates on resilience through sharing resources, sustainability, and forming community connections. Another, a more upscale development in Las Cruces, NM, sits among custom built homes and optimizes for unusual produce and aesthetic land use. Either way, agrihoods are an old way of life that people are rediscovering in new times.
Finally, out of Dallas, TX, comes a story about the big Texan heart. Big Tex Urban Farms, at the site of the Texas State Fair, is less about profit and more about feeding the hungry.The State Fair is the big annual fundraiser for the urban farming venture, but that means that the entire farm has to move during the September fair season. That’s why they designed the mobile planting boxes that also form the heart of their urban farming outreach. Those gardening boxes are distributed to schools and community organizations, along with soil and seeds suitable for the Dallas climate, as a way of letting people try their hand at growing food risk-free. If everything works out, new urban farms hive off of Big Tex. And if they don’t, the boxes can be returned to the state fairgrounds.
As Owen Lynch of Big Tex Urban Farms says, “A food desert is a health desert is a job desert is an infrastructure desert.” Next generation urban farming is taking root, contributing to communities at the grassroots level, where people are learning to take care of themselves – and each other.
Brian Wansink: “It Is Easier To Change Your Environment Than It Is To Change Your Mind”
Brian Wansink: “It Is Easier To Change Your Environment Than It Is To Change Your Mind”
Brian Wansink, PhD, is speaking at the inaugural New York City Food Tank Summit, “Focusing on Food Loss and Waste,” which will be held in partnership with Rethink Food Waste Through Economics and Data (ReFED) and with support from The Rockefeller Foundation on September 13, 2017.
Wansink is the John Dyson Professor of Marketing, the Director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, and Co-Director of the Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs. He is also co-founder of the Smarter Lunchrooms Movement at the Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management at Cornell.
Since earning his PhD in marketing at Stanford, Wansink has been a marketing professor at Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College, the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also the Julian Simon Faculty Scholar and Professor of Marketing, Nutritional Sciences, and Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He is the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and of the best-selling books Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (2006) and Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life (2014). More of his on where food habits and behavior science intersect can be found on Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab.
Food Tank had the opportunity to speak with Wansink about his work and his passion for improving the daily choices people make about their food.
Brian Wansink, PhD, John Dyson Professor of Marketing and co-founder of the Smarter Lunchroom Movement will be speaking at the Inaugural NYC Food Tank Summit.
Food Tank (FT): What originally inspired you to get involved in your work?
Brian Wansink (BW): I have come to realize that small changes can make a huge difference in our eating habits. You can talk to the smartest friend you have and ask them why they ate what they ate for breakfast, why they didn’t finish their dinner last night, what they are going to have for a snack. They may be able to come up with an answer, but they really have no idea. It is realizing what influences us in these ways and being able to provide solutions about how to improve what we eat. To improve what people eat when they go to restaurants. To improve what kids eat when they go to school lunchrooms.
FT: What makes you continue to want to be involved in this kind of work?
BW: The unexpected discoveries that we have come up with related to behavior have had these marked influences on what people do. A small discovery ends up changing the kids meals that fast food restaurants offer. Another discovery ends up changing the way grocery stores set up their produce lines. Seeing these really simple discoveries having a big difference is tremendously encouraging.
FT: Can you give an example of one of those discoveries you made?
BW: One of the things that we discovered was that simply changing the size of dinner plates can reduce the amount of food people take by about 20 percent, while they don’t believe that they have eaten any less. All it takes is using a smaller, 9 to 10-inch dinner plate, instead of using an 11 or 12-inch dinner plate like most of us use. In the first chapter of my book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (2006), I talk about starting the Small Plate Movement. This movement has been rolled out in Scandinavia and has changed the size of plates that are used in hotel chains and buffets in there. It is starting to make its way over to America.
Another change we made was to create the Smarter Lunchroom Movement. The Smarter Lunchroom Movement is now in 29,000 schools in the United States. It looks at making healthier food more attractive to students and more normal to take, by using techniques like changing the item’s position in line. It is portrayed even before people even get to the lunchroom and has changed the way kids eat without having to change the food itself. It is about guiding kids to apples instead of cookies.
FT: Who inspired you as a kid?
BW: Herbert Hoover. Growing up in Iowa (which is the state he grew up in), I heard the story that he had pretty much saved much of western Europe after World War One because of the food relief program he set up. I remember saying that if I could do a fraction of what he did to help people become happier and healthier, I would be the luckiest person in the world. Interestingly, during my interview in Washington, D.C., to be in charge of the dietary guidelines for 2007 through 2009, I actually said that and it surprised many people. I felt really grateful to have had the chance to impact the dietary guidelines and now for the strides we are able make toward more positive eating behavior.
FT: What do you see as the biggest opportunity to fix the food system?
BW: For almost 30 years, people have been told it is not their fault—. That it is the fault of fast food companies or the fault of government, or that it is the fault of the food industry. As this has gone on the person and the consumer, can resign themselves to thinking that there is nothing they can do about their food choices. It has lead to people thinking there is nothing they can do to improve their kids diet. Having designed that sort of structure can have a huge impact on what our families eat and can very easily have been behind many of the dietary problems we have seen over the last 10 to 15 years.
We find that nutritional gatekeepers, (the person in the family that buys and prepares most of the food), end up influencing about 72 percent of all the food eaten by the family. This can be for the better or for the worse. For instance, having a fruit bowl on the table instead of a cookie jar has a positive effect. So does choosing to go to a restaurant that actually serves salad, not just fried foods. Being able to empower people to say, ‘wait a minute, there is a ton of stuff that I can do.’ Fast food companies don’t have to be to blame, neither do multinational companies, or the government. There is stuff we can all do right away. That is where the action is at.
FT: Can you share a story about a food hero that has inspired you?
BW: Herbert Hoover graduated as part of the first class of civil engineers at Stanford before World War One. At that time, he was one of the highest paid people in the mining industry in South America, but he gave up that incredibly lucrative career to help address the many problems in the logistics of supplying all the food aid that was needed in the aftermath of World War One. He set it all aside, essentially, to prevent a lot of Western Europe from starving. Many people may question what a mine engineer knows about food systems. Much of the problem was in the logistics, so he was able to use many of the tools he had as an engineer to set up a food relief system that worked in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Russia.
FT: What would you say is the most pressing issue in food and agriculture that you would like to see solved?
BW: I would like people to not believe that the solution to everything food related is to ask and rely on the government to solve it through passing new laws. I think what we learn is that most laws and most regulations related to the food industry have really strange, unintended consequences. I would like to see changes in the very low hanging fruit. Changes to things that can be done quickly that are able to show people and institutions just how quickly positive changes can be made. Whether that be things like the Smarter Lunchroom Movement or whether it be programs that we have started in grocery stores or community stores.
Our program called Healthy Profits explains, why in many food deserts, you can now see fruit right next to the checkout. You can buy bananas the same place you buy gas. That didn’t take legislation, it didn’t take huge grants. All it took was showing convenience stores that this is a great way to make more money.
All of these systems that have been set up in the past, have been so huge and so amorphous that they have done nothing more than discourage all the players because they try to change the intergalactic food system. First, there is no agreement on how to do it. Second, after two or three attempts to get people together to talk about it people just throw their hands up and say, ‘forget it, nothing is working here.’ Instead, we should be starting in a place where you are able to accomplish small win-win changes because those are going to create all the changes that down the road we will all eventually agree with.
FT: What would be an example of one of those bigger changes that ended up falling flat?
BW: A great one is the Smarter Lunchroom Movement. The view about eight years ago was that there should only be healthy options in the lunchroom. That there should not be foods like cookies, chocolate milk, and hamburgers. The sentiment was that if only healthy options were provided, kids would be forced to choose those foods, but that didn’t work. Instead, kids brought cheetos and pizza from home. Many school lunchrooms already had healthy options available, so the challenge was to figure out how to get kids to take that instead of the cookie or the chocolate milk. All the while keeping that stuff there, so that if they want it they can eventually have it. There is no need to revolt against the system because they can have what they want.
FT: What is one small change a person can make in their daily lives to make a big difference?
BW: Use a smaller dinner plate. Our research has shown that on a day-to-day basis simply using a plate that is between 9 to 10 inches is leading people to serve less on average by about 15 to 20 percent. This has the effect of ends making people believe they are just as full, because in their mind they ate a whole plate of food. Also, putting a fruit bowl on your counter ends up influencing how much fruit people eat. One of the findings we highlighted in Slim By Design was that the average person who has a fruit bowl on their counter weighs about 13 pounds less than their neighbor that doesn’t.
Twenty-five years of research has shown me that when it comes to food it is easier to change your environment than change your mind. If you want to eat more fruit it is easier to put a fruit bowl on the table than it is to develop a checklist for eating fruit. If you want to end up serving less food it is easier to use a smaller plate than it is to remind yourself to eat 20-percent less. Our environment has a large impact on us, so it is up to each of us to engineer an environment that has a positive effect. If people believe that food desserts do not allow people to eat enough healthy food, then one simple change is to encourage the places that do sell food to place bananas or apples next to the registers, all of the sudden they see themselves making a lot of extra money. Now, something that was seen as a contributing factor the problem is able to be part of the solution rather than being legislated. These are very easy changes that have marked impacts on us.
The NYC Food Tank Summit is now SOLD OUT. You can still apply to the wait list or watch the event live on the Food Tank Facebook page on September 13, 2017.
Grocery Store Closings Exacerbate Food Desert In Rapid City, Group Says
“National statistics tell us that a half a mile, or a quarter mile, is about the distance a person could walk or have to go with limited transportation with their groceries. Any more than that would be outside of that range and be very difficult to get the groceries that you need,” Corbine says.
Last month, grocery distributor SpartanNash announced it will close three grocery stores in Rapid City in October.
According to a food security group in the city, that will create critical gaps in food availability to neighborhoods north of downtown.
In April, Mary Corbine started analyzing income levels and walking distances to grocery stores in Rapid City. Then in July, SpartanNash officials announced they would close two Family Thrift grocery stores, and the Prairie Market grocery store.
“I don’t see this as a crisis. Do I see this as a concern? Yes," Corbine says.
Corbine is a food security manager for Feeding South Dakota. She put together this map to go along with Rapid City Collective Impact’s food security efforts.
Her concern is this: that the closure of the three grocery stores will create an access gap for people in Rapid City, especially those with lower incomes.
She says the closures will only expand the city’s food desert north of downtown.
Corbine says transportation to and from grocery stores is a big issue.
“National statistics tell us that a half a mile, or a quarter mile, is about the distance a person could walk or have to go with limited transportation with their groceries. Any more than that would be outside of that range and be very difficult to get the groceries that you need,” Corbine says. “That’s what we’re looking at. What’s a quarter mile from the grocery stores? What’s a half mile away from the grocery stores? When you remove those three grocery stores it really puts a hole in Rapid City.”
City officials say they’re working with economic development partners to attract another grocery store to those areas. They say these store closings leave a golden opportunity for prospective companies to open up shop in the empty facilities.
For roughly 15 years, three grocery stores operated along the Omaha Street corridor, where two of three stores are closing. The city says that proves there’s a need in the area.